Video Storage Requirement Calculator

Sizing a Drive Array Before Footage Fills It Up

Surveillance systems, multi-camera productions, and long-form recording setups all face the same planning question before hardware gets purchased: given a bitrate and a recording schedule, how much storage does a given retention period actually require? Underestimate it and footage gets overwritten or recording stops early; overestimate it and you've paid for drives you didn't need.

The Formula

Storage(GB) = Bitrate(kbps) × Recording Time(s) × Channels ÷ 8 ÷ 1024 ÷ 1024

Recording time in seconds comes from multiplying hours recorded per day by 3,600 and by the number of days. The bitrate-times-time figure gives total kilobits, which is then divided by 8 to convert to kilobytes and by 1,024 twice more to reach gigabytes. Multiplying by the channel count scales the result for multi-camera systems recording simultaneously.

Worked Example

4-camera system at 2,048 kbps per channel, recording 24 hours a day for 30 days
Input	Value
Bitrate per channel	2,048 kbps
Recording schedule	24 hr/day × 30 days
Channels	4
Total storage required	2,531.25 GB (≈2.47 TB)

Doubling either the bitrate, the retention period, or the channel count scales total storage linearly — there's no efficiency gained by combining them, so each factor should be sized deliberately.

Where This Matters

Specifying a CCTV or NVR system — installers size drive arrays around a target retention period (30, 60, or 90 days are common), and this depends directly on channel count and per-channel bitrate.
Planning a multi-camera shoot — a production running several cameras across a multi-day shoot needs to confirm on-set storage and backup capacity will hold everything captured.
Choosing a bitrate/quality trade-off — when storage is fixed (a limited-capacity NVR, for example), working backward from available space tells you the maximum bitrate you can record at for the desired retention window.

How to Use This Calculator

Enter the Bitrate in kbps.
Enter the Recording Hours per Day (0–24).
Enter the Number of Days to retain footage.
Enter the Number of Channels/Cameras (optional — defaults to 1 if left blank).
Select Calculate to see the total storage required in GB.

Related Calculations

Not sure what bitrate to plan around? Check typical values with the Stream Bitrate Calculator, or estimate a single file's size with the Video File Size Calculator.